Blog Entries on passport history

James Joyce, the author of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake, was one of Ireland’s most famous writers. He died in 1941, but someone had enough foresight to hold on to one of his old passports, which will be auctioned off by Sotheby’s later this month. I’m sure whoever kept the passport is quite glad they did: according to the Irish Times, the auction is expected to bring in anywhere from €55,600 to €77,900!

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when you didn’t have to fill out a passport application to travel internationally. In fact, passports weren’t required for international travel until the first World War, though governments had been issuing passports or “documents of safe conduct” for centuries prior.